The Tempest
by MintExpresso
Summary: When the case on Brennan's parents is reopened, she is left to deal with the emotions she's held at bay for so long, and finds an unusual medium to release them. Oneshot.


**Title: **The Tempest  
**Rating**: K  
**Disclaimer:** Booth and Brennan aren't mine, unfortunately.  
**Notes: **What? Me, put off writing the next chapter of Cliff Notes to indulge a plot bunny? Guilty as charged. I would recommend listening to Beethoven's 'The Tempest' while you're reading this. In fact, I've made it easy for you by linking to an mp3 of it as my homepage on my profile. One-shot.

-----

It was funny, she thought, how quickly the walls people built to protect themselves could come crashing down. Or how a day could be so perfectly normal, until something hits you suddenly like a brick from out of nowhere.

"Bones? You okay?" Booth was looking at her strangely. It wasn't the expression that caught her off guard; she was very familiar with looks of mixed concern and pity. She just wasn't used to seeing it on Booth's face.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied automatically, wishing that it were true. She doubted that she would feel fine for a while to come, not since Booth had come into the lab and had told her that there was more information on her parents than had been in that file she'd entrusted to him. More information- and a lead. The case had been reopened.

Her parents.

A coldness crept into her stomach. She had lived without knowing for so long. Did she really want to uncover the truth?

Yes, of course she did, the rational part of her mind cried out. The other part, the one she wasn't accustomed to listening to, wanted to flee, to go back to life as normal.

She and Booth were at a church, an older, Catholic one with stained glass windows and a pretty little chapel. It was on the small side, and virtually empty that Tuesday afternoon. They were there to speak with one of the priests, who had worked at the church Tempe's parents had attended. She had the feeling, though, that Booth wasn't telling her something. Or a lot of somethings, maybe.

His voice broke the silence again as they entered the building. "Listen, Bones, maybe I should talk to this guy alone. Seeing you might put him on the offensive if he knows anything," Booth said, sticking his hands in the pockets of his woolen overcoat.

Tempe nodded. She knew the real reason- she would be nervous, easily agitated, and end up doing something stupid.

"I'll wait in the chapel." Her lack of argument bothered him more than anything, even more than the strained flatness in her voice. As soon as he had broken the news early yesterday, it seemed as if she had gone into some sort of hedgehog mode. After a few moments of looking shocked, the light in her eyes had been extinguished. He wondered what this would do to her as he glanced at her retreating figure over his shoulder, and then he shook himself mentally and proceeded to the church's office.

The chapel was relatively small, with about 20 rows of heavy, dark, wooden pews on each side. The ceiling was high and the floors and walls were stone. Brightly colored saints stared down from their windows.

And at the front of the room, there was a large, black grand piano, shining as coldly as frozen ash.

She froze. Then, irresistibly, she started forwards.

Her mind flashed back. Fifteen. Scared. Another piano. Her mother's. Lessons she'd taken for how many years?  
The echoes of her footsteps rebounded eerily throughout the room, bringing her closer to the ivory keys.

She'd gotten so tired of listening for footsteps. She had finally taken a seat on the smooth leather of the piano's bench, to do something other than wait, but she hadn't reached for her own books. She'd pulled down some of her mother's sheets of music, leafed through them, and picked a song. There were more notes on the page than she'd ever seen crammed on to one sheet of paper.

Fifteen-year-old Tempe had haltingly plunked out the first few measures.

Five hours later, she was still at it.

She played that song, and only that song, every chance she'd gotten. When a friend of her mother's had come to stay for a few nights. When those few nights had become a few weeks. A month. Two months.

She had played to drown out the noise inside of her.

Tempe reached the piano. She stared. It had been so long.

Everyone had left her alone when she was practicing. They had assumed that she needed the distraction. That, and they didn't know how to deal with her. It was easier to let her be.

She had played that song for two months, the longest two months of her life. Her fingers had become raw, sore, and calloused, but she'd ignored them. When she'd left home, and her mother's piano, to go into foster care, she'd never played it again.

She sat down at the bench. Her fingers tentatively pressed on the keys, testing.

And then, it was back. She hated that it was back, but her fingers had remembered, just as her heart hadn't been able to forget. She was fifteen again, fifteen and more frightened than she'd ever been in her life.

_They never came back._

A loud chord echoed throughout the room.

_If they were alive, they would have found me._

A discordant section. The notes were warring.

Her eyes were closed, and her hair cascaded down over her face. She leaned closer over the keys.

The notes danced and spiraled out of control. She was back, she was sitting at her mother's piano. It couldn't have been so many years since they had learned those duets together. It was impossible that they could have been gone for so long.

Tears streamed down her face. Her fingers ignored them. They always had. They leapt at will around the keyboard.

The chapel, hollow as her heart, echoed with the grief in the music. The stone walls trapped the sound, sent it back to her.

She would never escape it.

-----

Booth's interview had been, to put it simply, a waste of time. The priest hadn't known anything new, and his story had checked out. The FBI agent thanked the man, shook hands, and left the office to get Bones.

He heard music as he walked down the hallway. Piano. Something complicated, with loud, crashing chords and agitated rhythms. He wondered who was in there, playing for his partner, perhaps? He pushed the heavy oak doors open.

It was her.

Her auburn hair streamed down, nearly touching the keys, and her fingers were moving so quickly they never seemed to really touch anything. She was good. More than good. He hadn't even known that she played.

And she was crying.

He leaned against the doorframe, watching her pour her all her sorrow into the instrument. It felt strangely intrusive. She didn't even know he was there.

He waited. Listened. Watched. The music told him her heart, betrayed her to him.

The song kept going for several minutes, till it seemed that air was humid with desperate melodies. She left her fingers on the keys as the last reverberating notes died out.

Finally, she looked up, and through tear-filled eyes, she saw Booth.

She tensed in surprise. He wasn't supposed to be done yet. How long had he been there? She didn't move, but he did. He closed the space between them.

Hastily, she wiped the tears from her eyes.

"I didn't know you played piano." His voice was gentle.

She laughed, but it was half a sob. "I don't. I haven't touched a piano in years." She had tried, for a long time, but she was too busy. And it was too painful. Even when she had practiced, she had never played _that_. She never thought she would again.

Tempe rose. "Are you ready?" she asked shakily. If she acted as if she wanted to continue as normal, people usually went along with it. It was easier for them, after all. They would let her deal with it herself.

Booth wasn't buying it. "Temperance."

At the sound of her name, something broke inside of her. She was in his arms, somehow. She was crying into his chest.

He held her tightly, for a long time, breathing in the sweet fragrance of her hair and whispering quietly into her ear. He wondered just how long she had denied herself the chance to mourn.

Together, they would weather this tempest.

-----

**AN**: Love it? Hate it? See something you'd like changed? Want to reward my muse with a cookie? Drop me a line, let me know! This is just a one-shot, with no plans to continue.


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